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Notes on a Scandal
Directed by Richard Eyre
71 out of 100
Potentially offensive - we probably will not be seeing this film's makers at this year's GLAAD festivities - and just as potentially awful, this tale of an older, and obviously gay, dowinger, played with a gleeful abandon by the great grand dame Judi Dench and her obsessive relationship-cum-emotional blackmailing with a young and married (and sleepiing with one of her students) new school teacher played with near-equal aplomb by Cate Blanchett, may very well get off to a rather rocky start, but eventually delves into a psycho-sexual perversion all its own - and it takes you along for the ride, whether you want to go or not.
Brilliantly acted by all (third lead and usually ignored, Bill Nighy, as the cuckolded hubby, deserves mention as well), I actually left the theatre not liking the film all that much, finally coming to terms with its potential silliness and provisional luridness days later. Potentially offensive? Yes, but that may very well be the point. [01/30/07]
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The Notorious Bettie Page
Directed by Mary Harron
37 out of 100
As one would expect from a bio-pic (a subgenre that I have never had much of a palate for), the story trudges along with the predictability of the first day in English Composition 101. Ordinary and lacking in any auteurography whatsoever, Harron's film is yet another in a long line of life-stories riddled with the requisite painful childhood memories and the equally requisite bitterness and loneliness, even in the face of success (or in this case pseudo-success). Bland reading at best, we get nothing but hokum and a hackneyed artifice trying vainly to disguise itself as art cinema. Like Walk the Line last year or Ray and The Motorcycle Diaries the year before, (all films that were equally - and blindly(?) - praised as this one is currently being) The Notorious Bettie Page gives us absolutely nothing new, other than perhaps a better than average lead performance from Gretchen Mol as the one-time pin-up girl of the universe. [04/21/06]
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Old Joy
Directed by Kelly Reichardt
83 out of 100
Leisurely meandering along with a sense of melancholic mystery to every moment, as if something - anything - is about to suddenly - and irrevocably - occur. Nothing ever does - at least nothing of any obvious consequence - yet, much like in other minimilist mood pieces, such as in the films of Akerman and Jacquot, the seeming nithing that "happens" is ultimately of every consequence to the characters of the film.
The story of two former hippy buddies - one ensconced in family life, the other still aimlessly searching for whatever may make him whole - who spend one (probably) final week-end together in search of a hot springs of which Kurt (the appropriately grunge-martyr monikered soul searcher) has heard the splendor of. As these two men - now complete opposites - search for whatever it is they are searching for (one perhaps just a blast from the past, the other his very being as a man) we become immersed in their site-specific reality - their "nothingness" - their own private Idaho (or own private Oregon as the case may be). With hot springs-as-metaphor, Old Joy, plays out as a thesis in alienation - trapped with our neurosis as the world rolls passively by. A film where nothing is never just nothing. [02/01/07]
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The Painted Veil
Directed by John Curran
68 out of 100
When one first settles into The Painted Veil (based, of course, on the W. Somerset Maugham novel of despair) one thusly assesses it to be not much more than a well intentioned, yet rather ordinary literary adaptation - just as this critic very well did indeed. Once one delves a bit deeper though, and the film progresses, one sees a somewhat rich and rather lush potential undercurrent of emotional intrigue and possibly even a devestating tragedy. Sure, it may play out rather dryly - as both Maugham and period pieces in general usually do - and the potential may never be as completely fulfilled as one hoped it would, yet with the "use" of two of the finist, crispest and most original actors working in cinema today, the dryness is more oft than not wetted with emotional exuberance, and an invigorating eruption from Naomi Watts and Edward Norton both, juxtaposes itself with the mannered - and somewhat inevitably manicured - screenplay.
I must admit though, before ending my review, to never having read The Painted Veil (Of Human Bondage is my only exposure to the works of Maugham), yet thanks to my wife (an avid, even rabid perhaps, Maugham-ite) I do realize that the ending of the book has been changed - Hollywoodized if you will - and without going into too deep a spoiler-laden synopsis, though the new filmic ending may be something this side of a cop-out, the emotinal tragedy still comes through - at least to a certain point - and thanks (again) to Watts and Norton, it ends up not being the disaster one would normally expect from such an important change from page-to-screen. [02/01/07]
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Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Directed by Tom Tykwer
73 out of 100
Go ahead, laugh. No, really, it's okay, laugh. My wife certainly is (she walked out not twenty minutes in). You are probably asking yourself "what is he thinking!?" My wife did. The answer is that I really don't know myself. I surprised myself by liking it so much. One trick pony Tom Tykwer, whose only previously successful trick was the accidentally unique, yet uniquely deconstructive, rave-era novelty Run Lola Run, has here, pulled off the ultimate trick - he has made this admittedly jaded critic fall for this beautifully ugly, apropriately smelly, filth-ridden and rose-petaled film.
Both pretentious and exploitive, Tykwer's film (his first attempt at true artfilm since his 1998 novelty piece, Run Lola, Run) about a serial killer who kills in the name of smell, is all it's cracked up to be - and then some. Part monster movie, part absurdist comedy, part transcendental cognition, Perfume as a whole (and it's whole is nearly two and a half hours), far outweighs any of its multiple parts. So go ahead and laugh if you want, but perhaps instead of laughing you should maybe go see this audacious deranged little film and judge for yourself. The ultimate Bohemian-cum-vampire fantasy that is just as much ridiculous as it is divine, so go ahead and laugh, my wife still is. [01/08/07]
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The Prestige
Directed by Christopher Nolan
46 out of 100
With every new Christopher Nolan film I watch, it becomes more and more evident that Memento, his breakthrough brewhaha, was merely a fluke in what would otherwise become a bland career. Perhaps it is a bit hasty to nail that final nail in - after all The Prestige is only his fifth film - but I cannot help thinking that the promise of Memento - a well-crafted, if not a bit overpraised handjerk film fatale - has been lost forever in the mire of banality.
First, Nolan's retread of the Norwegian near-masterpiece Insomnia fell flat on its Hollywood face, and then Batman Begins - which had great potential considering the casting of the king of brooding Christian Bale to play the super hero of broodtown - merely followed suit with another banal cinematic venture into the wilds of nowhere (although it was inexplicably praised by many of my fellow critics). Now comes The Prestige, another promising tale - and another opportunity for brooding from Mr. Bale - that is left limp in the cold dead hands of a once promising young auteur (although again, it has been inexplicably praised by many of my fellow critics).
The story of rival magicians in 1890's Europe, Bale and Hugh Jackman (Batman vs. Wolverine?) muck through alright - at least as alright as a pair of one-note actors can manage - but are left in the middle of an obvious and rather silly story. How could one not see each and every plot "twist" well in advance of their uncovering? Repetitious and brooding (surprise surprise), The Prestige is competent enough for the most part (and a queer little perormance from David Bowie as the eccentric Nikola Tesla is fun to watch) and looks good to the eye - merely banal and predictable as a whole. [11/21/06]
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The Pursuit of Happyness
Directed by Gabriele Muccino
23 out of 100
Ordinary to the most ordinary degree. Emotionally manipulative and way too wanting-to-be-slick to be anything deep or emotionally sound. Sure, Will Smith gives an upstanding - if not a bit melodramatic - portrayal of the real-life Chris Gardner (on whose memoir the film is based) and Smith's own real-life son breaths some fresh - if not rather cliche'd - air into the whole shabang, but the tired, commoness of the film cannot help but reek from every corner - as is the case in many a studio biopic. And the worst part - especially considering we are talking about a true story - is the unrealistic and wholly unbelievable way this story is played out. Cartoonish at times (we must grab the audience with something is the probable mentality in the studio offices), The Pursuit of Happyness is nothing more than your typically bland and sufficently boring biopic sleeve-wearing heart-tugger. One final note - in advance of the nominations - congratulations Mr. Smith on your Best Actor Oscar nomination - and watch out for Forest and O'Toole. After all, this is the reason the movie was ever made in the first place, isn't it? [01/06/07]
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Requiem
Directed by Hans-Christian Schmid
78 out of 100
The idea of taking the same real-life story on which The Exorcism of Emily Rose was based upon, and telling it in the least sensationalist way possible is something unheard of in mainstream cinema. Fortunately for us, this German film from first-time director Hans-Christian Schmid is far from mainstream cinema.
Based on the true story of Anneliese Michel, a 23-year-old student, who died of starvation after an exorcism in Miltenberg, Germany in 1976, Schmid looks upon this tragic story from the most realistic standpoint possible. Demons are never seen, only the girl's reaction to what she sees - or thinks she sees. Much more likely a case of epilepsy and/or bi-polar disorder than demonic possession - the girl's strict Christian upbringing is twisted in her mind to the point of utter confusion.
Highlighted by newcomer Sandra Hüller in one of the most hauntingly frightful performances I have ever seen, Requiem goes far beyond the "horror" of what her story may or may not be, to show the reality of a young girl lost to the world of sanity. [02/01/07]
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Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles
Directed by Zhang Yimou
17 out of 100
The physical, natural beauty of Zhang is evident all around this visually manicured film, yet none of the energy - whether it is frenetic (Hero, House of Flying Daggers) or esoteric (Raise the Red Lantern, To Live) - that is normally associated with Zhang's filmmaking technique is anywhere in evidence here. The sparkle (though I must admit it is a rather manipulative sparkle he has) is just not here this time. There are no scenes that cry out for recognition as there have been so many times in Zhang's past films - not even the flimsy sparkling of the overrated but still entertaining eye candy films such as the aforementioned Hero and House of Flying Daggers.
A bland story taken to blander heights, as if this film were made by a Zhang wannabe, rather than Zhang Yimou himself. In fact, this mediocrity isn't even close enough to a Zhang film to be confused with a Zhang film. Tiresome and often tedious, Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles is probably the low point in Zhang's artistic - albeit gossamery - oeuvre. Perhaps even less than on par with much of the audacious fodder that spews forth from Hollywood these days, Zhang's latest is a complete and utter failure, especially when compared to the full breadth of Zhang's work. A bore from start to finish. [09/21/06]
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The Road to Guantanamo
Directed by Michael Winterbottom & Mat Whitecross
56 out of 100
There was a time, just a few years ago, when I was known as a "political person" - a political poet in certain circles, where I would rant and rave and radicalize through words and poems with titles like "The Military Industrial Complex" and "Amerika: A Variation". Perhaps I have become so jaded that politics do not matter to me anymore. I find myself a rather apolitical person these days. Sure, I still feels my hackles rustling when a certain know-nothing US President rears his maleficent head on CNN or MSNBC, but I am far from overtly political these days, opting instead to care more about the aesthetics of cinema than any political agenda. Left wing. Right wing. No wings at all. Doesn't matter as much as the sublime of cinema matters.
But then I watch a film like The Road to Guantanamo and its portrayal of the arrogance and disrespectfulness of the US military (and Americans in general I suppose) in the light of three British citizens being wrongly accused of being part of al-Qaeda, and all those political feelings - mainly angry ones - come rushing back. It is a film that may or not be the truth - only the Tipton Three know for sure - and a film that shows the atrocities that took (and take) place at Guantanamo Bay. It is an outrage of justice, as are most of the stories from inside Guantanamo, a place millions of miles away from Geneva and its quaint little conventions. Combine my resurfacing politicalness (self-preperation for the upcoming battle for the White House perhaps) with Winterbottom's Kiarostamian idea of mixing real people with actors and you get a film with both a cinematic style and socially relevant plot. A much better look at the audacity of gung-ho America than the much more hyped Borat, which takes a comedic look at the same set of emotional baggage, yet still more politics than cinema. [01/02/07]
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Room
Directed by Kyle Henry
83 out of 100
A film that answers the burning question of what experimental masterpiece Wavelength would look like if it had been a narrative film. Okay, perhaps that question isn't exactly burning upon everyone's lips, but hey, Room, the first feature from Kyle Henry, is just that. A woman, played superbly by Cyndi Williams (no, not that Cyndi Williams), is haunted by blackout nightmares of a mysterious room. She becomes obsessed with these visions and eventually abandons her life of sub-suburban dreariness and flies to New York to find her "room". A mystery worthy of Lynch, Henry's Room takes twists and turns in and out of bizarre alleys and darkened corridors until finally, miraculously, the woman, well not quite finds what she is searching for, but something else entirely. With visions of Michael Snow's aforementioned experimental masterpiece (parts could easily have been filmed in the same damned room), this film plays at everything, from middle America diorama of despair to full-out Proustian quest, all the time being haunted by the possessed Cyndi Williams giving what may well be the single greatest performance of 2006.
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Running With Scissors
Directed by Ryan Murphy
39 out of 100
In the best "tradition" of Wes Anderson - and his cutesier-than-thou family dramedies full of picture perfect detailed replicas of homes that could never exist outside the wet-dream fantasies of a slumbering out-of-work art director - Ryan Murphy kick starts his film career (after already kick starting his TV career with the creation of Nip/Tuck) with this seemingly (at first at least) beguiling tale of Augusten Burroughs (the memoir creator upon which the film is based), a young boy with delusions of a nice suburban household - played quietly sorrowful by Joseph Cross - and his crazy pill-popping mother - played with a fastidious amplomb by Annette Bening - who "gives him away" to her therapist - an aged Freudian Brian Cox - at the age of fourteen, where he goes and lives with an even odder ensemble of loons, cooks and malcontents, led by Gwyneth Paltrow as the elder daughter - basically channeling her Andersonian Tanenbaum princess - and Evan Rachel Wood as the younger sibling - played as someone who we know must be troubled because she dresses in dark clothes (he said with tongue-in-cheek and fingers crossed).
Never quite succeeding where a film like The Royal Tanenbaums did, Murphy's film sort of flatlines once all the obvious one-note jokes are laid out (which is about a half hour in) and all we are left with is that aforementioned art director's wet dream, a surprisningly poignant performance - albeit it a rather small one - by Alec Baldwin (he is really showing his chops in his last few arthouse romps) as Augusten's disqualifiable father, and a fun madhouse humdinger of a performance from Bening - even when she is at her most critically cliche'd. [11/21/06]
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Scoop
Directed by Woody Allen
56 out of 100
There are many - both the Woody Allen initiated and their agnostic brethren - sho are "icked-out" by having to watch the now septuagenarian auteur manhandling actresses young enough to be his granddaughters, although to be fair, many of these so-called young starlets are no younger than his current wife - but I suppose that line of reasoning is just going to open up a whole other bag of worms.
Well anyway, for all those naysayers out there, there is no need to worry with his latest, Scoop, and his muse-of-the-moment, twenty year old Scarlett Johansson, for Allen wisely transforms himself from romantic lead into the father figure here - although the neurotic bumbler is still apparent - and though Allen has used surrogates for himself in the past - to underappreciated effect (Branaugh a la Celebrity), middling effect (Ferrell in Melinda and Melinda) and to disasterous effect (Biggs wading in way over his head in Anything Goes) - there is no one else who could have pulled this part off.
Overall, Allen has not been funnier in years, and perhaps this is not the auteur at his peak, but still probably the funniest performance he has given since the mid-nineties. Unfortunately for us, the time spent away from Allen, and on the blandly beautiful Johansson and the equally blandly beautiful Hugh Jackman, is merely a waste of time, as we sit around waiting for Woody to pop back up again. [08/01/06]
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Shortbus
Directed by John Cameron Mitchell
13 out of 100
For audacious brownie points alone, John Cameron Mitchell's Shortbus - his sophomore follow-up to the wildly cultified Hedwig and the Angry Inch - should be one of the most controversially hoo-haa'ed heavy hitters of the year - perhaps in the same vein as Brown Bunny or Anatomy of Hell or Irreversible. Instead, what we get is a brave - if not unsuccesfully so - attempt at sexual frankness on film.
As far as any storyline goes, it is actually three interweaving storylines (a gay couple wanting to bring a third into their five plus year relationship, a couples counselor who is agonizingly "pre-orgasmic", and a dominatrix with lonely aspirations for a better, more "normal" life), all of which meet up at the Shortbus - an anything goes New York sex club - inhabited by all of the director's performance artist friends from the "underbelly" of New York gay and lesbian culture.
As far as these three stories go, what should have played out as a revelatory opening of usually unopened sexual mores of American society, ends up seeming rather staid and cumbersome in the end. Far from shy (there is one rather unique scene where three men - ensconced in fellatory revelry - perform the Star Spangled Banner to - and into - each other to break the weird silence that surrounds their triptychatic encumberances) Mitchell's cast never seem to experience much of anything - least of all the sexual frenzy that only goes on peripherally.
Bookended by a colourful animated tableaux of the great city of New York, Shortbus is anything but animated in its semi-brave-yet-bored look at sexual repression and its awakening. In fact, don't bother to wake)me until it's over. [11/17/06]
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Snakes on a Plane
Directed by David R. Ellis
27 out of 100
Come on, what would one expect from a film such as this!? Though very possibly the perfectly made movie for what it is meant to be. Ridiculously named (although I admit with a certain glee to feeling glad when the producers decided - at the vehemently persuasive behest of the online cult fan base of the film - not to change the name) and just as ridiculously hyped, Snakes on a Plane is a film which, if nothing else, lives up to its name - if not the hype itself.
Probably worth the price of admission alone just to hear Samuel L. Jackson - the coolest man in all of fanboydom - yell about all "these motherfuckin' snakes on this motherfuckin' plane!". In reality though - which definately needs to be suspended throughout the duration of the film - Snakes on a Plane is surely as ludicrous as one would expect it to be and one should not whine and moan after one willingly sits through such acts of cinematic desperation. A popcorn movie surely, but one with a snide flavour that one can enjoy - as long as one does not tell anyone. Oops. [01/30/07]
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Stranger Than Fiction
Directed by Marc Forster
58 out of 100
This film, from the man who gave cinematic birth to the over-hyped sensationalist atrocity Monster's Ball and the equally over-hyped humdrummity Finding Neverland, actually had me at hello. Unfortunately it lost me at goodbye. It tries to be The Truman Show. It tries to be Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It tries to be Charlie Kaufman. It succeeds in some fashion on all accounts but ultimately fails as a whole thanks to its wimping-out final half hour, in which we see the potential of such a story - the admittedly Kaufmanesque (and probably unsynopsisable) story of a woman writing a novel and the man who is her character coming to life (sort of) and attempting to confront her - ruined with the smiling banality of Hollywood shining through with teeth clenched in a cocksure smirk.
The film does manage to succeed though - in much the same way the similarly constructed Truman Show did for Jim Carrey - in humanizing the usually manic cartoon-for-hire that is Will Ferrell. Unfortunately though - much like Carrey - Ferrell will soon be back to his bread-n-butter hijinx with more films like Elf and Talladega Nights. As I said, it had me at hello but lost me at goodbye. [02/01/07]
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Suite Habana
Directed by Fernando Pérez
71 out of 100
Similar in vein to the silent era city love montages like Berlin: Symphony of a Great City and The Man with a Movie Camera, but even more in tune with the little seen 1982 lyrical click clack of a film, Toute une Nuit from Chantal Akerman.
Beginning at dawn over the city of Havana, and ending the following dawn, Suite Habana takes a melodical - and nearly dialogue-free - romp around the streets and homes of the beautifully melancholy city, zeroing in on about a dozon or so different "characters" - each one identified by just their first name and age appearing in the corner of the screen when they are first introduced. Perhaps not in quite the same league as Akerman's aforementioned film about anonymous lovers and loners walking the night streets and parks of Paris, but still lucrative enough in its style to lull one to a restful bliss as they watch - nearly hypnotically - at the everyday beauty and unspoken anguish unfolding upon the screen. [05/27/06]
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Superman Returns
Directed by Bryan Singer
43 out of 100
I must admit that I have just never found the character of Superman all that exciting. Yes, I know he's an American icon and stands for truth, liberty and all that jazz, but give me the darkness of a Batman or a Daredevil any day (although I could have done without the latter's filmic persona).
True, there are some rather nice images in this film, with the Super dude being splayed out as some sort of quasi-religious Jesus figure more than a few times (he is even ressurected at one point) and newcomer to the red and blue suit, Brandon Routh is picture perfect in the role, and Kevin Spacey's take on Lex Luthor is even better than than Hackman's in the original, but there is not enough to add up to a good film (in fact I think most of the points the film may have gained otherwise are completely washed away by the atrocious, nearly embarrassing attempt at acting handed in by Kate Bosworth).
Sure, I did not expect much - the genre would not allow a great film to materialize (oddly enough, my favourite chapter in the four major franchises, Batman, Supgrman, Spider-Man and The X-Men, have been the second one) - and what I expected is pretty much what I got. [07/31/06]
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